“Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation.  Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral traditions and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts.”  Will Durant in Part II of The Story of Civilization

 I’m indebted to Fern Medlin for bringing this quote – the first sentence in the book — to my attention.  Albion, Boone County, even Nebraska exist only as the result of concerted efforts to transform the American wilderness into something great.  Civilization had, of course, been here for a long time.  But it was not civilization to our ancestor’s eyes.  It was the mysterious workings of “red Indian” society, and was in many ways incomprehensible to the European mind.

One by one Native Americans societies were swept away by waves of White pioneers.  These pioneers saw the American frontiers as a blank canvas for creating a new and better social order – better than the Indians’ and better than what they’d known in Europe.

As Professor Durant understood, part and parcel of this process was the need to survive economically. While initially pioneering was a struggle to feed one’s self and one’s family, it was driven by the dream that one day, if people worked and sacrificed, they could thrive.

Central also to the development of our nation has been the second element in Professor Durant’s definition – political structure. America’s embrace of the ideals of democracy – though long denied to blacks and women – made possible the self-determination that pioneers sought.  Here they were no longer peasants subject to the caprice of an out-of-touch aristocracy.  Here, people could rise or fall on their own merit and were empowered politically to act on their own behalf.

Though comprised of people from many European nations, the pioneers did share a common Christian moral tradition. America was not built as a Christian nation, but the prevalence of Christian moral traditions was an important factor in allowing many nationalities to forge common cultural ground, thus meeting the third requirement of a successful culture.

Yet as important to American culture as our capitalist economic system, our political democracy and our largely-Christian moral underpinnings are, they were not in themselves enough to create a new civilization in the North American wilderness.  We had still to form a new and unique American identity, one that, though greatly influenced by European traditions, included Native, African and even Chinese elements.

This is where the last of Professor Durant’s criteria comes into play – to succeed in creating a new culture in a new land, our pioneer ancestors had to embrace the humanities and the arts and develop both in uniquely American ways.  A people without a way to express their individual and collective soul – a people without the arts – are not a “people” at all.  And without a shared cannon of knowledge about everything from history and literature to law and social science, a society again lacks a shared identity that joins people together into a culture.

The work of civilizing America didn’t stop with the end of the Homestead Act (which continued in Alaska until 1986) — it is an ongoing process that requires we maintain an economy that supports all Americans, a political structure that gives voice to all, a moral compass that makes it possible to live together in peace, and a commitment to nurturing knowledge and the arts.  And nowhere is this more vital than in rural areas where our little towns too-often seem poised to return to the soil from which they so recently arose…

“All forms of totalitarianism try to avoid the strange, the problematic, the critical, the rational.” – Theologian Paul Tillich

The above quote from one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20^th Century was used against me recently in a rather spirited discussion about rural development.

Generally, whether they live there or not, people tend to see helping struggling rural communities as a good thing.  But not in this instance.  In discussing the subject with an individual who had grown up in a small town but then led a successful life in a city, it became clear that he had strong opinions about what’s wrong with rural communities.

The “totalitarianism” he mentioned was not communism or radical Islam – ideologies we tend to associate with that word – but instead the “tyranny of the small mind.”  He said that while there are exceptions, people in small towns are slaves to their self-imposed limitations.  He said they are “conservative to a fault” and, using the above quote, argued that they are opposed to anything that doesn’t fit neatly into their ‘backward and largely fanciful’ world view.  He pointed out that only a few years agoNebraska’s Third District was home to some of the poorest counties in the nation (though this is hopefully changing as land and crop prices rise).  Despite this, the people here overwhelmingly embrace pro big-business Republicans whose policies favoring industrialized agriculture have for decades been destroying the viability of small farms and small towns.

He cited research that I’ve touched on in past columns, research that purports to show that there are distinct personality differences between conservatives and liberals.  Conservatives are said to be very orderly and very good at staying their course, but also easily frightened.  Liberals, it is said, are better at managing – and less afraid of – change.  He said people in small towns are afraid to grow and thus hostile to new ideas and new approaches.  As a result, they’ve driven off the people who could have done the most to help them evolve (“brain drain”).

He was adamant about his position.  Though I offered a number of examples of rural innovation, including Boone County’s progress in developing renewable energy, he dismissed such efforts as too small to have a widespread impact and years behind what people in other places are already doing.

I then made the mistake of pointing out that rural Nebraska has produced a Pulitzer-winning national poet laureate, Ted Kooser.  He countered with Kooser’s own observations about small town residents, recalling that Kooser had likened them to wolves in his book Local Wonders, wolves who are always on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary.  Kooser, he reminded me, had explained how one gets around the “wolf senses” of a small mind by making little changes that over time add up to big changes.  Close a few country schools and pretty soon they’re all gone.  Let people spray animal waste through a center pivot here and there and in time they’ll be doing it everywhere.  Small town residents oppose change, but only when it’s rapid enough that it penetrates their consciousness.

This man was a true zealot in his antagonism towards small towns and the ‘tyrannical small minds’ that stifle their growth.  So there wasn’t much point to arguing with him. 

It was a stark reminder, though, that along with a lot of very real problems, rural communities are also battling some very ugly stereotypes…